Mobile phone users waste £5bn a year

Mobile phone users in the UK are wasting up to £5 billion a year because they aren’t on the best tariff for their needs.

People are also not aware of the additional data charges for accessing the internet on mobiles, which have been fuelled by the meteoric rise in smartphones with online access.

The increase was recently noted by research analytics firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which suggested that over 50 per cent of mobile phones users in the UK now own a smartphone.

People can now choose from more than seven million deals currently on offer in the UK, however, many get easily confused about where they can save on their phone bill.

Of the respondents surveyed, 81 per cent weren’t aware that having the Twitter app stored on their device can use up data, even when not in use.

“When the UK is facing one of the hardest financial times in living memory, it seems crazy that £5 billion is being wasted on phone bills,” Carphone Warehouse chief executive Andrew Harrison commented.